Eager to maintain its frontline position in the battle to supply a desktop manager for the X Windows System, Cambridge-based IXI Ltd says it has signed a development agreement with IBM for the possible inclusion of its X.desktop product in future AIX releases. IBM was showing version 2.0 of the manager running on top of Motif at the recent Unix Expo show in New York, wher it was dubbed AIX.Desktop. If IBM were to take the thing, (the main opposition is seen to be Presentation Manager), it would be able to offer a single interface across its AIX range, from the PS/2 through the RT and its successor to the 3090s. Two-year-old IXI, which is 80% owned by its management and staff, made a $1.5m profit in its first year and has offices in the UK and Boston, Massachusetts. A West Coast office in Palo Alto, California, will open on January 22, and a Tokyo operation is planned for the near future. The next version of X.desktop is set to support multi-tasking and include more adaptive features.
